Good News for Farmers as Atrazine Lawsuit Stumbles

The plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the manufacturer and distributor of the popular herbicide, Atrazine, have voluntarily dropped more allegations from their lawsuit. Tuesday's withdrawal of claims related to real estate damage, marks the fourth time the suit has been amended to reduce claims. The suit in Madison County, Ill., is the first filed in the U.S. against the 50-year-old chemical, though lawyers have made a push in other cities trying to win support for a class action. Initially, the suit was filed on behalf of Holiday Shores in Madison County, an upscale housing district built on a small lake. The issue was occasional detection of small amounts of atrazine, well below EPA safe standards, in the water. The plaintiffs alleged that atrazine at any level could pose a risk to people and property values. Eventually, the cities of Carlinville, Fairfield, Flora, Hillsboro, Litchfield, Matoon and Mount Olive joined the action. There has never been a documented case of injury or illness caused by atrazine at approved levels, but EPA is in the process of again studying the chemical and reviewing all the science. The plaintiffs had already dropped their claim for a remediation study and clean-up of their water supplies and the court had thrown out their claims for declaratory and injunctive relief and punitive damages. As the effort to push the case forward falters, it becomes more and more apparent that this was a frivolous suit to start with; an activity designed to make uninformed homeowners fear their farmer neighbors, make money from legal fees and do damage to farmers and the companies that support farming activity. Now here's something to think about: Just who's agenda is this anyway?